


Making The Eight

by agirlnamedtruth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Pre-Canon, Character Study, F/M, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-09
Updated: 2014-06-09
Packaged: 2018-02-03 14:23:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,133
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1747766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agirlnamedtruth/pseuds/agirlnamedtruth
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwaine thinks he is making the eight, he will never know he is shaping destiny, for better or worse.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Making The Eight

**Author's Note:**

> Written for several prompts at [Camelot Land](http://camelot-land.livejournal.com) including: The Five Kingdoms, Isle of Mora, Western Isles, Greenswood, Tintagel, The Northern Plains and Camelot.

In his youth, Gwaine had often heard the term _making the eight_ though the eight in question often varied. People from the North often counted The Five Kingdoms as one, given the unlikeliness that they'd ever make it to all five. Those close to or inside the Five Kingdoms would say that they counted as five points, given that they might never make it out of them to score another six.

When he was younger and his time was spent wishing he could be a knight - rather than settling for drinking them under the table and brawling in the street with them - he thought it was some great quest of kingdoms conquered in the name of his king. When he was older he learned it was a quest of a different sort and the only kingdom to be conquered was the one beneath a woman's skirts.

There were rules of course, but who was checking, Gwaine didn't know. She couldn't be a whore or bribed in any way. She could be married but then others were less inclined to believe the claim. She could even be a he, if the claimant was so inclined. And they had to be bedded in the kingdom that they called their home for it to be struck off the card; it wouldn't do to go through a run of ambassadors within one court, that was just bad form.

Gwaine had never left Caerleon, even after his father died and he'd turned his back on his name and nobility. He'd never asked his bed mates where they'd been born but he doubted any of them were more travelled than he was. But he wanted to change that so he left the tavern with a clean slate to pack a bag. It was one way to see the world, he supposed.

On his way out of Caerleon, he found himself stopping by door. Somewhere in the back of his mind, a voice told him Caerleon was still a kingdom but for the most part, he just wanted to say goodbye to somebody.

He knocked on the door and smiled at the servant that opened it. "Lady Annis, if you'd be so kind."

When his father had been alive, he was to be betrothed to Annis and she was the only noble that had fought for his case, though she'd been laughed out of court quicker than he and his mother had been. Now he had no prospects because he refused to inherit his father's titles and land, she'd been betrothed to the King's son, named after his kingdom. Gwaine thought it for the best. He was only twenty three though she was nearly twice that and in all honesty, he didn't want to be married, even to her, fair and just and rare as she was among noble women.

He was shown to her rooms in the great house her family owned and he found her by the fireside, the light sparkling in her blue eyes and catching her dark, strawberry blonde hair.

"Sir Gwaine," she said, even though he had never officially been knighted.

"Sorry, he couldn't make it. Just me, I'm afraid," Gwaine said, smiling to deflect the hole she always managed to uncover in his soul.

"You'll have to do then," she said, smiling back. "What brings you to my door at such an hour?"

"A goodbye," Gwaine admitted. There was no point putting it off.

"Ah." She looked down and back up again, as if she'd been expecting it.

"There's nothing here for me anymore," Gwaine explained even though she hadn't asked. "Not now you are to marry."

"That wouldn't have stopped you, if I wasn't," she said but it wasn't an accusation, just an acknowledgement. "You could have argued, a contract is a contract. You didn't have to drop your claim."

Gwaine turned away, remembering why he'd stopped seeing her. She always made it sound easy, appealing even and he'd learned the hard way nothing was ever easy. "I couldn't have given you anything."

"A choice. You could have given me that."

He felt her hand on his shoulder, silently promising things neither of them could trust, that it wasn't too late, that she wasn't to be queen, that he wasn't just another vagabond now. "I should go."

There was a heavy silence between them, finally broken by one word, "Don't."

Before he could stop himself, he had turned. Before he could stop her she was kissing him. And so, rushed and knowing it would be both the first and last time they touched, he made the first of the eight.

-x-

The Isle of Mora was beautiful and the first time he'd ever stood upon an island. The tavern he was staying in hosted a singer every other night and her voice, as beautiful as the rest of her, cast a spell over him. After a week of watching her in awe, Gwaine plucked up the courage to ask the tavern owner who was this glorious Helen and if she was the Helen of legend, who could start a war with her beauty. The man looked at him like he was speaking a foreign language and for one of the first times, Gwaine realised he would never be one of them either, the small folk.

He learned that she wasn't Helen of Troy but rather Helen of Mora and equally out of reach to him. But when she sang, he could swear she looked at him and in those moments, it didn't feel so hopeless. She was almost within reach. But then, he supposed, every man who listened to her must feel like that.

One night, when she sang especially sweetly and the gods had made him feel like he had the luck of the devil, he waited outside for her. When the doors rattled and the moonlight hit her, for the first time in his life, he was speechless. A mere boy of twenty five in a strange land waiting in the dark for a glimpse of paradise.

"You've got a beautiful voice," he said before she was completely gone from him. She turned, searching him out in the shadows rather than startling. It was almost as though she had expected him to be waiting for her. Perhaps he should have waited every night since the night he first saw her.

"Thank you, sir," she said, approaching him even though he must look like a loitering drunk. "Do you sing?"

"Nothing fit for a lady's ears," Gwaine said without thinking. "Usually the songs heard in taverns are not as pleasing as yours."

"Oh but you must teach me them," Helen said, smiling until her cheeks glowed and he could see the slight gap between her teeth. "I fear my songs have been full of sorrow of late. I would like to change that."

Hoping he was reading the signs right, he glanced upwards. "I have a room here, if you would like to learn in privacy."

She put her hand on his arm, her cheeks reddening but holding her smile still. "I would like that very much, kind sir."

He did not correct her like he would usually. Out of her mouth, it didn't sound like a condemnation or a rank, it sounded like a fairytale waiting to be sung. The only places where knights were really honourable, nobility was noble and such a princess might love him freely.

And so, in a room above the stage she usually took to, she taught him how to sing and he taught her things that she could never sing about, and the second of the eight was made.

She was summoned to some great city before the end of the week and though she promised if he waited, she'd return, he never heard her sing again.

-x-

Mora lost its beauty once Helen had abandoned it and after too long, Gwaine found himself on a ship. He wasn't ready for the mainland just yet. The close comfort of an island had appealed to him. There were less politics, less nobility and a greater freedom that the Five Kingdoms had not allowed him. He sailed around coast, to the western shoreline and a small cluster of islands.

Upon his arrival, he found the place was simply called the Western Isles. Gwaine liked that, the simplicity of it. He stayed on the smaller of the isles, sleeping under the stars as there were only a few houses and none of them were vacant.

After a few hours, he realised he wasn't alone. In the distance, he'd been able to hear the scrape of metal but he assumed it part of his nightmares. Then, unable to sleep any longer, he watched the sun rise and caught a shadow on the horizon. A man. A soldier. A knight, practising in secret?

Gwaine knew he shouldn't get involved, he didn't get on with nobility, knights less so but there was something frenzied in the way the knight beat at the wire enemy he'd made. Gwaine couldn't help but approach him, out of curiosity if nothing else.

"I think you got him," Gwaine joked, raising his eyebrows at the state of the thing.

The knight turned, his sword making an arc through the air but too slowly. As of late, Gwaine had learned to be quicker than that and he parried the blow with his own sword, fresh from its belt.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to offend," Gwaine said with an easy smile.

"You did not," the knight said, putting down his blade. "You merely... surprised me."

He said it like admitting to a weakness and there was a look of desperation in his eyes to match the frenzy he'd been fighting with.

"I'd say you look in need of a dancing partner," Gwaine offered, starting to warm to the knight. Perhaps it was because he didn't look like a knight or behave like a knight. "Gwaine."

"Valiant," the man said, shaking his hand.

"Not Sir Valiant?" Gwaine asked.

"No. I'd have liked to have been but I have neither the name nor the money," Valiant explained. "I was hoping to sell my sword but I fear I don't have the skill. Still, a man needs to eat."

"Ah well, you know what I say about that - if at first you don't succeed, try cheating."

Gwaine raised his sword but Valiant caught it just in time, his breath coming fast. He parried a few more blows before Gwaine tackled him to the ground, landing heavily on him, pinning him with his weight.

"See, cheat," Gwaine said breathlessly.

Valiant nodded, leaned up and kissed Gwaine, catching him completely by surprise. When the kiss was broken, he found he was the one pinned. "You have a point."

Gwaine laughed, unconcerned by his new position. He wasn't opposed to being on his back on occasion. "I'd use that trick sparingly, some might not be as _understanding_ as I am."

"Is that right?" Valiant asked, shifting his weight so they both understood.

And so, under the rising sun, Gwaine made the third of the eight, a destined knight who would be a common man and a common man who would be a knight.

When the sun was high in the sky, Gwaine knew he couldn't stay but he didn't want to leave the man with nothing.

"I meant what I said about cheating. This world won't let you better yourself the right way." Gwaine bit his lip in consideration. "Look, there is a lot more money to be made selling your sword a different way. Find a tourney or a melee, find a crest and find a way to cheat. You'd never have to fight for your life again, especially not against poverty."

"I'll bear it in mind," Valiant said, smiling gratefully.

Gwaine moved on, not worrying too much about the fate of the man. He could see a creativeness, a resourcefulness in him that he didn't doubt would lead to a great or terrible end. Either way, Gwaine knew the man would not worry about hunger again.

-x-

Making his way back through the mainland and the Five Kingdoms, carefully avoiding any town that might know his face, his father’s name. He found himself in a little village, outside of a big kingdom. For a while, he thought he might stay but one night, he was set back on his path.

He'd made the forth, half way through his eight and content to stop there. Her name was Lorie and he couldn't say what made him want to stay with her. Perhaps her bright blue eyes reminded him of his first love. Or perhaps it was that she’d never asked him to stay.

He had been half asleep when it struck. She'd been telling him stories of the dragon sealed under the neighbouring kingdom and for a moment he was sure he was a sleeping and dreaming the beat of wings.

"Gwaine!" Lorie screamed and suddenly the dream fell away to reveal it wasn't a dream at all. There were other screams, from outside and within the other little houses and the only thing he could think was _dragon_.

He grabbed his sword, not stopping for a shirt and turned towards her, still in bed. "Stay here."

She nodded and for a moment he wondered if he was telling her the right thing. Should he have told her to run instead? He kissed her, promising himself it would not be their last.

The creature wasn't a dragon although it did fly like one. It was some great eagle bred with a horse or something not of this world; Gwaine didn't have time to ask it. In a fierce rush of possessiveness, over his town, his friends, his love, he charged. The blade struck flesh and feathers but it was like striking a shield. The blow glanced off, the impact jarring him and forcing him to the ground, under the beast's talons.

He didn't know he'd lost consciousness until he regained it in the quiet. He couldn't say how much time had passed; only that the creature was gone and relief flooded over him. A part of him had forgotten he wasn't a knight, he wasn't even a soldier. He was just a man, as easily killed as any of them.

He pushed himself up and froze, his relief turning to ice in his veins. Lorie was sprawled out beside him and if it wasn't for the blood, he could have thought her merely sleeping beside him, like they did every night.

He returned her to their house and packed a bag, remembering he didn't belong anywhere and no good came from pretending otherwise.

He passed Florie, his love’s younger sister and his heart broke for her, for the fact he couldn't save Lorie, that he wasn't a better knight.

"Go to the citadel. Find your king. Tell him what happened," Gwaine said, his thoughts disconnected. "He will send knights, much better men than I am."

Tears were streaming down her face bit Gwaine couldn't stay, not now. The forth had cost him dear and he needed to forget.

-x-

Finding his way back to the sea, he landed himself in the closest thing to a citadel he could bear to be. It was called Tintagel and it was ruled over, to his surprise, by a woman.

Upon his arrival, he sought out the story behind it. Once there was a king, Gorlois, but he died in battle. His wife fled somewhere in grief, possibly to her death but at the least, never to be seen again and her youngest daughter was taken as a ward - or a hostage, depending on who was telling the story - by the King of some foreign land. That left only the King's eldest daughter, Elaine.

He was twenty six and he'd never met a queen before. He had to admit he was curious. For the first time since he'd left home, he sat in a court and watched the nobles. He knew how to play the part and when called upon, he had the name to prove he belonged there, even if in his heart, he knew he didn't.

Soon, he was invited to dine with the Queen in private. She was of an age with him, with blonde hair and green eyes. He knew he had a weakness by then, for water-like eyes. A band of gold sat on her head and he wondered if Annis wore something similar as her crown.

"I hear you are not yet a knight, my lord," she said as the servants cleared away the plates.

"I am not, your highness, nor am I a lord," Gwaine answered, still trying to work out her intentions and his own.

"Perhaps we would make a knight of you yet," she suggested, laying her hand on his knee under the table.

"I fear I am not suited for knighthood, though I would serve her highness in any other way, if she had need of me," Gwaine said, masking the seduction behind such terms because an offended queen could part him with his head.

"Perhaps we would have you as a lord then," she said, her hand climbing higher on his leg. "For we could use you for a night, if not a knight."

Gwaine smiled, letting her lead him to her rooms as was befitting a queen. He allowed himself a taste of the life he might have had, laying upon silk sheets in a royal bed chamber with only royalty above him.

And so, quite without thought of it or memory of his quest, he made the fifth of the eight in the bed of the queen in a castle overlooking the sea.

He never told anyone who she really was, he'd always replace her with a servant in his tales but some nights, he did wonder about her and the sister she'd never known, grown up as a ward or perhaps a hostage in another land. He knew a true knight would find her and save her but he also knew he could never be a true knight so he left Elaine in one tower and her sister in another and moved on, like he always did.

-x-

He travelled far north and in the Northern Plains, he found the small kingdom of Tír-Mòr. It wasn't much compared to Tintagel or Caerleon but it had its charms. Foremost of which was the lord's daughter, Sophia. Her hair was a rather plain brown but her eyes were a hypnotising shade of blue, he swore he lost days at a time staring into them.

She hadn’t been born in the lands that made up the Northern Plains but he didn’t care. He’d lost interest in his list long ago. At night, hidden away from her father, she would tell him of her home, a place she thought of as magical and otherworldly. He didn’t have the heart to tell her as a child, everyone’s home seemed that way - lakes were oceans, hills were mountains, plains seemed to go on until the end of the world. Instead he listened to her memories like they were fairy stories and he was the child. After a while, he started to believe her when she said people lived happily ever after there, forever and ever.

As much as she told him of her past, she asked about his own. She seemed to know he was a nobleman as clearly as if he had it written on his skin, skin she knew every inch of. One night, he gave in and told her his story.

“So you are not a prince then?” she asked him when he fell silent, his story told. “You do not have the blood of a king?”

Gwaine laughed, finding her lips to kiss her. “Sadly not. I know how you love your tales of princesses and princes but my father was just a man who fought for the wrong cause.”

She stared hard into his eyes and in the darkness, her own seemed to glow. “Is this the truth?”

“It is,” Gwaine said, knowing if he’d had any secrets left, he would have told them to her in that second. “You’re not disappointed, are you?”

She laughed but Gwaine found a bitter edge to it. “Actually, my love, I am relieved. For your sake, if not my own.”

“What makes you say that?” Gwaine asked, worry rising in him on her behalf. He knew their being together was a risk and that her father had a famously short and hot temper but he had never seen fear in her eyes before.

“Shush,” she said, pressing a finger to her lips. “It doesn’t matter. Tell me, what is the right cause then, to fight for?”

Gwaine frowned at the way his worry dissolved like sugar in water but he was helpless against her wishes and he would tell her anything she wanted to know.

“Love,” he said, kissing her finger. “Family. Life.”

“How strange it is,” Sophia said sadly. “That life is worth dying for.”

The next morning, he found her gone and Tír-Mòr found itself without a ruler. Rumours of chaos spread over the Northern Plains and nobody could say why the city had been abandoned so. Only Gwaine knew, only he had been given a reason, written on a piece of parchment, left on Sophia’s pillow.

_Today we will begin our fight for the right cause._

He kept her words to himself and followed in her wake, leaving Tír-Mòr behind him and so, leaving the sixth of the eight, though he could not say if she truly was of the kingdom she claimed to be or if he’d dreamt the whole affair up. Later, he wouldn’t be able to say the moment he fell in love with her nor the moment he fell out of love with her, only that he loved her like a man bewitched.

-x-

Travelling south again, Gwaine passed through the forest of Inglewood, keeping a wary eye out for hunters. It was the King's Royal forest and King Olaf had the rights of hunting there exclusively. Gwaine was more concerned about a stray arrow than being accused of trespassing but he wanted to avoid both if he could.

His hopes were shattered at the sound of hooves and he raised his hands in surrender ready, hoping they would ride on. The last thing he needed was to be thrown in with nobles again; he'd had quite enough of them recently between lords and queens. But they didn't ride on; they stopped, parting for one lone white horses among the bays.

The first thing he noticed was her startling blue eyes, the second was the crossbow she had levelled at him.

"Are you a traveller?" she asked from atop her horse.

"Of sorts," Gwaine answered, keeping his hands up so long as she kept her weapon raised.

"Have you been to Camelot?" she asked, leaning forward in her saddle to look down on him.

Gwaine considered his answer. He didn't know if war had touched these lands or if citizens of Camelot were granted free passage. She didn't look like the type of woman to suffer a liar either so he shrugged. "No but I've heard of it a few times, seen some of its outlying lands."

"Such a shame," she said with a pout. "I was hoping you knew a friend of mine. A very good friend."

"Perhaps I do, I've been a lot of places. Do you have a lot of friends? Perhaps we could even be friends, you never know, I'm a lovely mate to have," Gwaine said, trying to bargain for his life without looking like he was worried for it.

"Perhaps. Perhaps not. We shall see," the lady motioned him towards her horse and held out her hand to pull him up into the saddle behind her. "You shall tell me of all the places you have been and all the people you have met on the ride home. My father will want to meet you. He likes executing men that presume to be my friend."

“Perhaps I should start my story with you then, lest it be my last. Your name, my lady?” he asked, unfazed by her threat. He’d gotten around many fathers and guardians and brothers in his time. 

“Lady Vivian and you, sir?”

“Gwaine. No sir needed,” he answered, wrapping his arm around her waist as she kicked the horse into a canter.

As it turned out, she was a lady indeed. Her father was one of the rulers of the Five Kingdoms, a king he had heard of, the king of the land he was in, in fact. He sat upon his thrown as Lady Vivian pulled Gwaine towards it, every cautionary tale coming back to him.

“Look Daddy, I found a man in the forest who would be my friend,” she smiled at everyone before turning cold. “I think he is an enemy sent to lure me away from my one true love.”

A sigh went around the court but to Gwaine’s surprise, it wasn’t a romantic sigh, it was a long suffering exasperated one and it started with the King.

“I will speak to this _friend_ then. Set him right,” he assured his daughter, dismissing everyone else with a gloved hand. 

When the room was empty and Vivian had finally left them, he turned to Gwaine, beckoning him to the throne. “Marry my daughter.”

“I beg your pardon?” Gwaine asked, completely thrown. Surely no father would want him as a husband for their daughter, even if he had asked which he was unequivocally sure he hadn’t.

“Marry her, I beg you. I’ll give you lands, a dowry, I’ll make you heir to the throne just for the love of the gods, have her.”

Gwaine stared at the king; sure he was out of his mind. “Aren’t you going to fight me? Accuse me of stealing her honour?”

“The Prince of Camelot has stolen that, along with her sanity and good sense I fear. She will not give up this silly notion that she is to be married to him,” King Olaf explained.

“And you’d rather she married me?” Gwaine asked.

“I’d rather she’d marry anyone but afflicted as she is, nobody will agree to see her. You’ve seen her; she is beautiful and noble still. She was once independent and clever, she knew her own mind, a rare trait in a woman but I fear while she is infatuated with this Pendragon boy, her own will has been sapped.” The king looked about the empty room, as if he feared the walls had ears. “I do not say this lightly but I fear her love isn’t natural.”

“You think she’s enchanted?” Gwaine asked in the same lowered tones.

“I fear to think it. One mention of magic in Camelot would be enough to start a war, let alone accusing the Prince of it.”

Gwaine frowned. He couldn’t understand why a prince, of all people, would stoop to such means only to send his intended victim away. “Tell me everything.”

Later that night, Gwaine slept on the silken sheets of royalty as King Olaf’s guest. He’d turned the story over and over in his head and he could only come to two conclusions. Either this prince was an idiot or he too had been spelled; only he’d somehow broken it.

He’d not proposed to the Lady Vivian, not today at least, though he had promised to help. The Five Kingdoms were balanced on a very tenuous peace treaty and Gwaine didn’t much like the idea of war. Especially a war fought over a lie. But neither did he much fancy having to marry under the same lie. If there was a way to cure her like this prince had been cured then he vowed in the morning to find a sorcerer.

After a few hours sleep, he awoke, not to the light of dawn but to the press of a blade. It was cold but the body above him, wielding it, was warm. “Lady Vivian.”

“What has my father told you?” she asked, pressing the dagger into his throat.

“Only how much you love this prince of yours and how he wishes you to marry,” Gwaine answered, carefully bending the truth to keep her from murdering him. “Why didn’t you marry him?”

She paused, her grip on the dagger slackening. “He didn’t want to fight my father. He knew it would upset me to see either of them hurt.”

“Aha,” Gwaine agreed. “But he did want to marry you?”

“Of course,” she insisted but she didn’t sound as sure as the words implied. “He told me so.”

“I know little of true love,” Gwaine admitted, keeping an eye on the blade as he trod a dangerous path of thought. “But surely true love cannot be kept apart like this. If I loved you...”

“Yes?” she asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

“I would not send you away.”

“Oh,” she said, sitting back again as if it were not the answer she expected.

“And if you truly loved him, I think you wouldn’t bring back strange men to meet your father,” Gwaine said, airing a though he’d nursed since King Olaf had told his tale. “I think you are strong, stronger than this magic. I think there’s a part of you fighting it. I think that’s why you’re here now.”

“I came to kill you,” she said frankly. “For trying to stand between me and my love.”

Gwaine grabbed her hand and pressed the blade into the flesh of his neck. “Then why is this blade blunt?”

Vivian frowned as he lifted the dagger away, leaving only a white mark where it had lain.

“And why, instead of slitting my throat while I slept, did you come to me like a lover in the dark of night?”

“Stop it.” She leaned down and ran her fingers over his lips, trying to halt his words.

“Why did you ask for the truth about your condition if you are not aware of it?” he asked around her fingers, pulling them away from his mouth.

“I don’t know,” she said, fighting to pull her hand away. Gwaine hadn’t meant to scare her but in her state; she seemed to be fighting more than just him.

“Why did you really come?” Gwaine asked. “What is it you really want?”

“Freedom!” she shouted at him, nearly screaming. He pulled her close to him and shushed her, if only to stop her waking the whole royal household.

“What do you need to be free?” he whispered though he already knew. There had to be a reason she’d climbed into his bed and stayed straddling his body even once he’d proved her assassination attempt useless.

“Love,” she whispered. “ _True_ love.”

Gwaine closed his eyes. He didn’t want to marry her but he couldn’t pretend that he felt nothing for her. “I don’t know if you could call it love but I am true. I am real.”

“That will do,” Vivian said, pushing him back down onto the bed.

And so, under the virtue of saving her, he had the seventh of his eight and if he wanted, a wife and a claim to a share of the Five Kingdoms. But in the morning, he was released from all such offers.

“Thank you for freeing my heart, I suppose,” she said, handing him his clothes and pushing him towards the door. “But I have no further use for you. Not even as a friend.”

Gwaine couldn’t deny he was relieved. He left the Five Kingdoms without a wife, without a friend and for the first time in a long time, feeling that perhaps chivalry wasn’t dead after all. Saving damsels in distress had just taken on a rather different form.

-x-

After years of travelling, drinking and love, Gwaine found it curious that he’d heard a lot about one Kingdom than the rest. Camelot.

When he finally crossed its threshold, he isn’t even conscious. He didn’t know where he was when he awoke in a foreign bed but it certainly isn’t the first time. When his eyes settled on the boy from the tavern, Merlin, the moments before he got knocked out rushed back to him. Merlin explained what happened to them, and more beside, and once again, Gwaine found himself in the house of a nobility, of royalty no less, simply because he couldn’t help _helping_ them.

Determined to get himself thrown out in disgrace, Gwaine found the local tavern, trying to talk every pretty woman or handsome man into joining him. By the time he got there, he had a lot of friends indeed. He bought out half the tavern in an attempt to forget the prince and his servant but he couldn’t shake them and when Merlin was suddenly there, with him, albeit telling him off in a right royal fashion, he couldn’t help but wonder if he saw fate’s hand in all this.

For the first time in his life, he willingly told his story. It was strange to say, like somehow he’d disconnected that part of his life from the one he lived now. His father had fought so long in wars that didn’t matter, he hadn’t really known him but Merlin had never known his father, not at all, not even in name.

Later in the night, his head starting to hurt from sobriety and from the countless knocks it had had over the last few day, he wondered where Merlin slept if he still had his bed. Creeping to the door, he went in search of him. A part of him knew it was selfish, to even consider it when he knew he couldn’t stay but a part of him wanted to and that part, at least, would have Merlin know how much having a friend meant to him and that included giving him his bed back, if not joining him in it.

He found him on the floor at the bottom of the steps and it was only because he moved that Gwaine didn’t step on him. 

“Come on,” he said, pulling Merlin up. “Back where you belong.”

Merlin looked at him sleepily. “Where do you belong, Gwaine?”

Gwaine considered. The true answer was _nowhere_ but he didn’t want pity so instead he said, “Tonight, here.”

He set Merlin down on the bed but he couldn’t move away, Merlin had a grip on his shirt still. “Thank you. For saving Arthur.”

“I wasn’t just saving Arthur,” Gwaine reminded him.

“Ah, yes, me too,” Merlin said dismissively. “That doesn’t matter as much though.”

“Of course it does,” Gwaine said, frowning. “Arthur hasn’t healed my wounds; he hasn’t given me his bed. He didn’t even buy me a drink. See, that’s a noble for you. I was much better off saving you.”

“Still, thank you,” Merlin said, staring up at him, wide awake now.

Gwaine meant to nod, he meant to shrug, he meant to do something but instead, the closeness between them reaching a breaking point, he broke it and kissed him. It was only a quick kiss, it could almost be a friendly kiss if not for the tension that hung thick in the air but when Gwaine pulled away, he couldn’t help but fear he’d crossed a line he didn’t want to cross. For the first time in his life, he was afraid of rejection. He was used to moving on, like water breaking on a beach only to recede but with Merlin, he _wanted_ to stay.

“You’re welcome?” he said belatedly, his voice cracking slightly.

Merlin smiled for a second then turned serious again. “If that’s what I get for saying thank you, what do I get for saving your neck at the tavern tonight?”

Gwaine kissed him again, letting himself be pulled down onto the bed.

“And for giving Arthur the bill in the morning?” Merlin continued between kisses. “And I’ve had to carry you up all those stairs. Twice.”

“Twice, eh? I can do _twice_ ,” Gwaine promised.

And so, in a tiny, hard servant’s bed in the most talked about city in the whole of Albion, Gwaine made the eight and found himself for the first time in a long time, complete. He knew it could not last for long and it was a fanciful thought but something in him thought of this place as home. He hoped that fate, having finally brought him here, would one day let him return if it would not let him stay. Until then, he contented himself with the thought that there were enough kingdoms for another eight to be made.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimers: The idea of "making the eight" is borrowed from the A Song Of Ice And Fire series. In cases where no explicit geographical information is given, I've improvised and the two seemingly original characters are in fact borrowed from Arthurian Legend. I also borrowed slightly from Dame Ragnelle for Vivian's section and fiddled with Gwaine's past a little bit.
> 
> As of 01/01/18, I'm opting to disable comments. [More information here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/13077201).


End file.
